


Love & Compassion (Mercy With Their Gentle Eyes)

by mihrsuri



Category: The Tudors (TV), The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Child Abuse, Child Murder, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Families of Choice, Forced Prostitution, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-OT3, Protectiveness, Rape Recovery, Underage Rape/Non-con, witcher hunger games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26043481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: No, the worst thing I do is equip them to survive [A series of vaguely linked self indulgent fic snippets in my Witcher Hunger Games AU verse in which characters from my Tudors OT3 AU verse also show up. Title from a Sonnet of Michelangelo]
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Thomas Cromwell/Henry VIII of England, Calanthe Fiona Riannon/Eist Tuirseach
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Love & Compassion (Mercy With Their Gentle Eyes)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i think there's a flaw in my code](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25740604) by [voodoochild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild). 



> I wanted to post this publicly because maybe, maybe I shouldn’t be ashamed that this story is mine, that I was Triss and maybe it is okay to write a story in which a child like me has adults who love her and protect her. Content warnings for everything (child sexual abuse, child prostitution and explicit descriptions of the aftermath therein). Please take care. District 2 headcanons very much drawn from my friend Kawuli and also Lorata's District 2 universe. Calanthe and Eist dynamic taken from my friend Drea's fic. My musings on this AU can also be found under the witcher hunger games tag on tumblr.

Yen has never resented Triss but then, no one does. Partly because it’s Triss but also because fuck, no one wants the little ones to win. No one. And Triss won at twelve without killing anyone and was beautiful and sweet and kind. 

No, no one fucking wants that. That’s why we make sure to kill them early - quickly, so it doesn’t hurt because that’s the kindest thing to do - Geralt had told her early on that that was one of the things the career kids were taught, unofficially. A code of honour, of sorts, though you’d never think it of careers - little monsters, her district had called them. 

(It’s rich, Yen thinks when she remembers her childhood tormentors who would almost certainly spit at Geralt, who is gentler and better than any of them)

-

She’d never wanted to admit to herself that she’d never really had an option either because…it was one more of her choices taken from her and being free to make those choices is basically how she doesn’t set the entire capital on fire. 

-

Yen adores Ciri immediately.

* * *

He thinks that might be the cruellest thing - that Cal can’t just go to war - that she’s not allowed and it boils under her skin. The first time she came back from being District 1’s unofficial executioner, the one for the really bad ones, the ones even the career kids don’t get, she’d tried to not tell him but Eist has always vowed to love every part of Calenthe Cintra and he’s never flinched from her.

She’d watched for it, he knew - expected it and sometimes he really really wishes for a harpoon, some fish knives and a few hours with the people who made her think she was wrong and twisted up.

-

Cal looked at Henry Tudor (his real name, he’d whispered to her, not the name the capital gave him) and thought that he wasn’t the killer he thought he was, not exactly. Mostly One boys don’t get sold but this one? This one is all his York and Woodville family, the Tudor nose only adding interest.

The fact that his grandmother married a Presidents son isn’t going to matter, not after the mess of his fathers games and the oldest son who was too ill to go.

He’d listened to her, which isn’t a given with One boys even now - you’d think they’d get it out of them but sometimes the Academy spends too much time telling them how special they are, how much they excell that they forget to but Henry listens and learns.

He wins his games in mud and rain and the wrestling match with Francis makes the ratings go through the roof.

Her boy is very good at what he does and it hurts. But Cal can’t not make sure he lives - even with everything. She feels like fucking Two again - with their mentor systems and the community of Victors when District 1 keeps the Academy kids with their families, dresses it up in service and glory and aren’t they the best of Panem - golden children, with Volunteers Families given medals and gifts and ribbons to exalt their sacrifice and grief.

(It makes her feel sick, when she thinks about it. Maybe she should have been Two because they don’t dress it up in gold and glossy ceremony)

“I fucking hate all of this” she says to Eists shoulder one day, when the cameras can’t catch their words and he just nods and understands her.

(She’s never talked to Henri but then Henri was never really raised for the Games for all that he married a victors daughter but she watches his sagging relief clashing with sadness when his son makes it out and she thinks of Pavetta and the deals she made and something twists inside her).

-

Cal doesn’t tell him the risks - her boy knows them, probably knows them more than most because he grew up with them, however much his parents tried to shield them 

(There are days when she’d happily flay Henri Tudor alive for falling in love with a victors daughter who was also the Presidents grandchild and being so stupid as to think he could get away with it, that it wouldn’t be paid for by his children but that probably isn’t fair. Calenthe doesn’t give a fuck). 

Instead they talk strategy, in places the capital can’t monitor them and Cal can’t get over how fucking ridiculous it is, that they are talking about relationships at all (with her - most of her non Eist relationships are desperately fucked up or involve murder) but somehow with Harry, it’s something she can do and actually gives a shit about. 

(Cal does not generally allow herself to do that but Hal Tudor got under her skin and stayed there for reasons she’s doesn’t understand and she only laughs when Eist asks if they’ve adopted another child but it’s not not true). 

Especially considering who Anne and Tom are - Anne Boleyn from District 4 - not a victor or a career and Tom Cromwell who was never a tribute or a victor but had the worst of it without the glory. And somehow, somehow she likes them.

* * *

The thing about the man who bought her is that he doesn’t like when she cries and Triss, Triss wants to be good because she knows if she doesn’t, if she makes him upest then people will die and it will be her fault. So she doesn’t cry, doesn’t say it hurts when the chains bite into her wrists and when her dress is stained in the front with blood. 

She wants to be good and he says she is. That she’s a natural. 

Triss knows her wrists should hurt more and she tries to clean herself up afterwards but keeps fumbling, can’t stop fumbling and it hurts and she can’t cry because that would be being bad. 

You can’t be bad. You have to wear short clothes and smile and be good. 

Calenthe and Lyme find her and help her though. They are gentle and they let her sleep in a comfortable bed (not like the cage he had), they clean her wounds and take off the collar. 

-

She’s twelve and it hurts. It hurts, but he doesn’t like it when she cries and Triss, Triss wants to be good but it hurts and he’s a grown man and a part of her thinks she might be broken inside permanently, she remembers that. She remembers the colour of the sheets, the design of the chains and that he told her to say thank you., that he’d wanted a little lady to take care of him. 

She remembers he told her not to hurt herself because it would spoil her prettiness and the last thing Triss wants is to disappoint anyone else so she doesn’t. 

“You didn’t kill and you made a lot of people very uncomfortable Triss Merigold - yes you were a draw but I need you to be very very good and not disappoint anyone” 

The President had said that to her and she hadn’t really understood, not then. 

She tries not to tell anyone because she doesn’t want to make anyone upset but Eist finds out and he doesn’t hold onto her but he gets some of the other victors, gets Lyme who brushes out her hair and they put her to bed and she’s so sorry because she doesn’t want to be a bother and she doesn’t want to make anyone angry.

* * *

Geralt had never had an issue with what the capital wanted of him, after he won his games. After all, he has always belonged to the capital, to the program - he has no right to think otherwise and even if he had thought so, he has drenched himself in enough blood that giving himself over is the only thing he deserves. 

There is no right to say no, not for him. 

The problem comes because there are others who should have that right - though District Two victors don’t get sold, not like the other districts but they know their duty. It still sticks in his throat, that the kids he mentors have to go through that, if they live. 

And then there’s the little one. Triss Merigold. Just twelve, a tiny little thing who knows how to hide, knows about plants and flowers and kills no one and for all that Geralt bets on her, wants her to live he also desperately, painfully doesn’t. 

There’s a reason District 2 tries to kill the little ones painlessly and early. Especially someone like Triss who is kind and sweet and the kind of pretty that the capital coos over. It makes him sick to hear about, the words about who might buy her if she wins. 

She does, even if it’s by default but Geralt knows why. Knows the capital likes to do this sometimes, to show that even the littlest aren’t safe. Knows that and hates himself for having wanted her to live. 

Calenthe is the one who carved up the first man but it was too late. And yet, little Triss is the one who tries to comfort them, who says “I tried to be good” and her voice is wobbling but she’s trying to be brave. It hurts for all of them, seeing this little girl because…she was never meant to be here, a victor. 

But they adopt her, all of them because she’s their little girl now and Triss grows up with another family and if she has a man and his hands she also has the other victors around her always. Looking after their little flower.

* * *

“Tell me, as the Director does it feel good, Tissaia? Are you proud of training kids to kill each other and then be sold off if they get out alive? Did you add Triss to your resume…”

Yen had spit it out and she had expected a hit - verbal or physical but Tiss just looks at her tiredly.

“I didn’t, Yen. Not Triss. But yes, I help train kids to kill”

And to survive, of course. Tiss had said that to her once, almost softly, that she thinks that might be the worst thing she does, hoping they live. Equipping them with the skills to do so, to become her. To become Yen.

Their world is cruel and Triss doesn’t belong in it. Triss was twelve years old and the capital sold her to a man for six years and Triss is still kind, still gentle (she reminds Yen of Mags, a little). But then Triss was never meant to win - she was smart, she ran and she knew which plants to avoid but Yen is sure that heads rolled when Triss won because she won without killing.

(Or maybe not, when the man who bought her had clearly expressed his desires).

Yen is going to kill the man. She decides that when she meets Triss, whose gentleness and kindness doesn’t make Yen scream somehow, doesn’t make her want to peel her skin off (or someone else’s) because of how it makes her feel wrong and fucked up.


End file.
